Is it Possible to Loathe the Greens Enough?

Mehreen Faruqi’s appearance on Sunday’s edition of ABC’s Insiders has proven, yet again, that it’s impossible to be adequately revulsed by the Greens. In a now-viral interview, the keffiyeh-clad Senator declared that the dismantling of Hamas would be entirely foreign to her policy.

Although host David Speers dangled plenty of opportunities for Faruqi to mop up, she simply couldn’t bring herself to say that the Palestinians might be better off under alternative leadership. That must have struck most viewers as a fairly easy moral test, and the Greens Senator rushed to fail it. Instead, she huffed: “Hamas has nothing to do with recognising Palestinian statehood. Recognising Palestinian statehood is about Palestinians being able to self determine.”

Faruqi, perhaps better than any other Greens politician, unites the qualities of gormlessness and verbosity. She is unaware, I guess, that the majority of Gazans voted for Hamas, still approve of its October 7 pogrom, and would like to see the terror army assume greater post-war governing responsibilities, preferably in a Jew-less area extending from about the river to the sea. Should a Palestinian state come about on Faruqi’s timeline, Hamas would very likely have something to do with those arrangements, despite her claims to the contrary. Anyhow, she went on to call the dismantling and extirpation of Hamas “a hypothetical, theoretical scenario that probably is never likely to happen.” I leave it to readers to detect for themselves how much wishcasting is contained within that statement.

As usual with the Greens, it got worse. “It’s not up to me to say who should be gone or not,” Faruqi added. It’s up to the Palestinians to decide “where they want to go with their own region, not intervention from Western countries.” In the next breath, though, she indicated that her policy of non-interventionism certainly excludes Israel, as she prattled on about Labor’s failure both to punish the Netanyahu government and create the conditions for peace in the Middle East.

For the rest of the interview, Faruqi showed off her talent as an unofficial spokesperson for Hamas’ public relations arm. First, in accordance with the preferences of the Gaza Health Ministry, she dutifully recited the propaganda numbers of war dead, neglecting to note the distinction between fighters and civilians. Second, after Speers gauged her receptivity to the release of Israeli hostages, she speedily changed the topic. Don’t forget, she whined, about her demand for Israel to release Palestinian hostages from its prisons, which is a condition of the latest ceasefire deal. I’m sure that those barbarous Islamist terrorists anticipating a return to the battlefield are grateful for the Australian Greens’ passionate support for their liberation.

To her credit, during the interview Faruqi mastered the impulse to call for Israel’s destruction, so that’s progress of a sort.

To her credit, during the interview Faruqi mastered the impulse to call for Israel’s destruction, so that’s progress of a sort. That can’t be easy, I suspect. Last November at a Greens-spruiked School Strike for Palestine rally in Sydney, Faruqi posed for an Instagram snap with some prospective party members, one of whom waved a placard featuring an Israeli flag in a trash receptacle alongside the anti-Semitic slogan ‘Keep the World Clean’.

Readers may also recall Faruqi’s uncontrollable outrage in the days after October 7. To be clear, her ire wasn’t in the least directed at Hamas’ murderous campaign. Instead, her first comments on the war’s outbreak only arrived when the government proposed lighting up Parliament House in blue and white to show its solidarity with Israel. “One colonial government supporting another,” Faruqi harrumphed. “What a disgrace.”

All this is in keeping with the Greens’ contemptible reluctance to issue a public criticism of Hamas on just about any matter over the last nine months. They didn’t support a motion to do so in the Federal Parliament last year, and the State Greens can hardly find a bad word to say about the terror group, either. Instead, you’re much likelier to find New South Wales MP Jenny Leong invoking Nazi propaganda regarding Jewish tentacles at a local anti-Israel hatefest. Moreover, Faruqi, along with Jordon Steele-John and leader Adam Bandt, has defended both the vandals who defaced the war memorials and the intruders who belted out Hamas’ favourite genocidal rhyme from the top of Parliament House.

With this record, none of what Mehreen Faruqi said during her Insiders appearance ought to be surprising at all. Anthony Albanese, though, still appeared baffled when questioned about the interview. His response, as usual, was tepid and pathetic, with his suggestion that the Greens must be queasily aware that they’re up to no good and should just come to their senses.

That, I’m afraid, is about as likely as a Greens politician happily standing in the vicinity of an Australian flag. The Prime Minister’s light touch, however, might be explained as mental and political preparation for a power sharing arrangement with the minor party as the prospect of minority government after the next election looms.

That’s a grim thought on which to end, I know, but it goes to my original point about the inexhaustible fund of revulsion that the party inspires and deserves. Though you may have a low opinion of the Greens at present, I suspect it’s nowhere yet near low enough.

Timothy Cootes is a frequent contributor to Quadrant and Quadrant Online